Amid the consolidation of the strategic partnership between the Kingdom of Morocco and the United States of America, the Polisario Front has chosen the path of armed provocation, openly defying Washington through a coordinated surge of military attacks in Western Sahara, under the political, logistical, and military sponsorship of Algeria, according to Israeli intelligence services.
As Mr. Bryan J. Ellis, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs, was on an official visit to Morocco from January 11 to 13, the Polisario terrorist group, based in Tindouf, Algeria, and supported by the Algerian military regime, stepped up armed operations against the Royal Armed Forces (FAR), in an apparent attempt to undermine the Moroccan–American strategic rapprochement.
On Monday, Mr. Ellis was received in Rabat by General Mohammed Berrid, Inspector General of the FAR and Commander of the Southern Zone, at the headquarters of the General Staff. At the same time, the American official also met with the Minister Delegate in charge of the Administration of National Defense, Abdeltif Loudyi.
Discussions focused on strengthening bilateral military cooperation and on preparations for the next meeting of the Defense Consultative Committee, scheduled for 2026 in Washington, confirming the enduring anchoring of the military alliance between Rabat and Washington and Morocco’s sovereignty over its entire territory, including the Sahara.
This U.S. position, unacceptable to the Algerian military regime of General Saïd Chengriha and President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, acting through terrorist proxies, appears to have served as the trigger for a carefully orchestrated military escalation.
According to statements from the so-called Sahrawi Ministry of National Defense of the Polisario, relayed by the Sahrawi Press Agency (SPS) of Algeria and the Polisario, units of the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) targeted several Moroccan positions in the Mahbès sector, inflicting, by their own account, heavy human and material losses.
The attacks reportedly targeted the command post of a Moroccan battalion in the Rouss Lahtiba area, as well as a tactical group in Oum Lagta, along the defense wall.
On January 12, 2026, again according to SPS, a FAR support and logistics base was also targeted in the Guelta sector through intensive shelling.
For many observers, this escalation cannot be separated from the central role of the Algerian authorities, which have hosted, armed, financed, and supervised the Polisario for decades. The use of heavy weaponry, the coordination of strikes, and the political timing of the attacks reflect a regional strategy dictated from Algiers, aimed at challenging not only Morocco but also the United States and its clear stance on the Sahara issue.
By striking at the precise moment when a senior Pentagon official was in Rabat, the Polisario, under the impetus of the Algerian military regime, sends a hostile message to Washington: Algiers rejects the emerging strategic order in the Maghreb and does not hesitate to instrumentalize an artificial conflict to disrupt regional stability.
This headlong military escalation exposes the destabilizing role of the Algerian regime in the Sahel and the Maghreb and confirms that the Polisario Front, like Hamas in Israel, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, does not act as a mere local actor but as a military instrument serving a state strategy aimed at directly opposing American interests and those of its allies in the region.
In U.S. strategic circles, Algeria is increasingly perceived as a problematic actor, not only because of its active support for destabilizing armed movements, but also due to its ideological and diplomatic alignment with Iran, a regime at the heart of the radical axis hostile to Western and Israeli interests.
Algerian positions marked by openly hostile rhetoric toward Israel, akin to radical anti-Zionism bordering on political anti-Semitism, along with its declared rapprochement with Tehran, are prompting growing vigilance in Washington.